Seven Minute Thought Watching

[ajay00]

An interesting and insightful article by a newpaper editor named Rama Ramanan on her experience in meditation or thought watching...

When I first met Balagopalji, my spiritual guide and teacher, he introduced me to one of the core sadhanas taught at Oneness University — seven-minute thought watching. All I had to do was sit down in padmasana, close my eyes and watch my thoughts. Simple, right? Wrong. I would soon realise that thoughts are like monkeys. They leap from one branch to another. They screech in and scratch on every corner of your mind.

During my initial days of thought watching, I struggled to find thoughts. Where were they? Why was I not finding a single thought? Was I already experiencing the eternal sunshine of a thoughtless mind? Much to my dismay, no. A few days of practice, and I began watching my mind party its heart out with new voices almost every nanosecond.

Sri Bhagavan, the founder of Oneness, often tells us, ‘there is a whole crowd inside you.’ I began to feel that crowd inside me. All these years, the crowd has been working diligently to build multi-storeyed and multi-coloured mansions of thought inside.

I just discovered that I do talk a lot.

Let me share an instance of how this crowd works. In my previous role, I worked on the main news desk for a brief period. One day, I was asked to anchor the nation pages. A colleague who was a couple of days old in the organisation was asked to work with me. After our evening edit meeting, the plan changed. She was told to anchor the pages, and I was asked to assist her. My mind decided to throw a party right then; the crowd inside clinked their thought goblets. Many voices emerged. One said, ‘I don’t think my reporting manager has confidence in my abilities’. A second voice said, ‘I should just quit this job.’ A third voice said, ‘I am not good at anything. Journalism is not for me.’ And a fourth one said, ‘She’s new and she’s already anchoring the page. You are a failure.’ The inner chatter turned shriller and bulkier. The weight was unbearable.

The weight of this mental noise, Sri Bhagavan says, is our (inner) suffering.
Are we listening to this crowd? More importantly, are we aware of this crowd inside us? Are we rubbishing the crowd because we’re often told, ‘just don’t think about it. Don’t let thoughts affect you. Don’t be bothered.’

The last four years of my thought-watching practice have made me realise that one cannot stop thoughts and this crowd from assaulting the inner state. It is the discipline of this sadhana that does all the magic. Thought watching is like, Balagopalji says, sitting in the balcony of a high-rise building and watching the traffic go by on the road outside. We spot all kind of vehicles, don’t we? A big yellow truck, a red hatchback, a white van... Our thoughts too come in all sizes, shapes and decibel levels.

If one had to map my thought-watching sadhana, it would be something like this: “There is no page one lead-worthy piece for Tuesday, send a text to the team. I think I’ll make noodles for dinner. Why didn’t she check my message yet? Oh no, phone bill! When are these seven minutes going to be over? I cannot afford any more cab rides. That uncle always comments on my weight. How is Meghan Markle going to live up to the royal expectations? I wish Diana was alive. Harry would have probably found a better match. I need to buy new pants to match with that orange top.”

This is just seven minutes. Take a moment. Pause. Go through all the voices in your head from your waking moment to the moment you fall asleep. You’ll discover it’s noise and not voice. This noise is the jukebox you never wanted. It plays on a loop all day — constantly approving, rejecting, analysing, judging, and making every attempt to move you away from experiencing the moment. It relives your past, makes you visualise your fears, and dwells on rampant rants.

So, yes, chatty Cathy, the pull-string talking doll, is each one of us — in our internal worlds.
Let me share a mundane incident. I moved to Chennai in January this year. During my first week here, one morning, I was busy toasting the last four slices of bread when my maid came in. She said she’d eat too. While toasting, I heard a loud chatter inside. ‘Should I give her the last slice and eat the nicer ones? Will she think I am insensitive? Does she know the difference between the texture? I should never have asked. There would have been no conflict.’ For as long as the bread slices were being toasted, I watched the chatter inside. What helped me dissociate myself from these questions is the thought-watching sadhana. It’s magical.

The inner chatter doesn’t choose who it wants to befriend. It’s we who do. It’s we who hold on to the constant commentary, grip every thought and bottle it up. You cannot stop the commentary of your own volition. The seven-minute thought watching sadhana is a powerful tool to become conscious, aware and eventually catch the chatter, thereby reducing its frequency. ~ Rama Ramanan, Editor of City Express

I've never practiced thought watching per se, but in all the techniques I have practiced and currently practice it's more or less a secondary "noticing". That is whether focused (breathe, sound, smell, bodily sensation) or open (resting in awareness) thoughts get noticed as they arise, sooner (with enough practice) or later (when a novice).

With enough practice the mind does settle down and to an amazing degree. It all depends on the amount of lifetime practice. The results begin to become noticeable after roughly two weeks of 30 minutes a day and eventually carry over outside of formal sitting with enough practice.

This is a great analogy for clarity of mind, and best I can describe it is serenity or even bliss.

https://youtu.be/5TeWvf-nfpA?list=PL...PNokg&t=155 6

The only thing I would debate is resting in awareness is not a basic technique (that would be the focused techniques, the most basic being breathe) but an advanced technique. It's pretty much a prerequisite to have gained a certain amount of single-pointed focus and concentration via basic techniques, otherwise open meditation can be very challenging (read frustrating!) with a wholly untrained monkey mind.

What happens when it gets subtle, but is still there?

JL

Originally Posted by janielee

What happens when it gets subtle, but is still there?

JL

If you mean when thoughts get subtle here's my experience.

Subtle thoughts always exist. They precede the less subtle, more "noisy" variety. It's my experience the subtle thoughts are the first to be "spawned" in response to a given stimulus, and then they build and build until they are noisy and noticeable, potentially leading to an undesirable emotional reaction.

When awareness is constantly exercised through meditation it becomes easier to be aware of the very subtle thoughts as they first arise. This presents an opportunity to exercise free will before they build into a runaway thought train and emotional response.

I outlined my hypothesis based on experience here: https://www.spiritualforums.com/vb/s...&postcount=280

Thanks, JASG. My theory is that thoughts separate from the one thought. Thank you on your synopsis and sharings; they are always much appreciated - enjoyable and accurate to boot

jl

Originally Posted by janielee

Thanks, JASG. My theory is that thoughts separate from the one thought. Thank you on your synopsis and sharings; they are always much appreciated - enjoyable and accurate to boot

jl

From as far back as I can remember I always had an obsession with infinity, starting with what's beyond the edge of the universe. Trying in vain to visualize it in my mind. LOL!

Eventually I came to the other side of infinity, and that's what was there before the Big Bang. Another head-scratcher of monumental proportions. Doh!

Even from a purely material reductive perspective it's mind-blowing that I'm sitting here as a unique and individual embodied being, typing this post. All the improbables that had to fall exactly in place in the exact sequence they did to make this moment possible.

Unimaginable intelligence and creativity. Ineffable. Wonderment to the power of infinity! Absolutely beyond human comprehension, but still we try because it's something deep in the core of our being.

Originally Posted by JustASimpleGuy

From as far back as I can remember I always had an obsession with infinity, starting with what's beyond the edge of the universe. Trying in vain to visualize it in my mind. LOL!

Eventually I came to the other side of infinity, and that's what was there before the Big Bang. Another head-scratcher of monumental proportions. Doh!

Even from a purely material reductive perspective it's mind-blowing that I'm sitting here as a unique and individual embodied being, typing this post. All the improbables that had to fall exactly in place in the exact sequence they did to make this moment possible.

Unimaginable intelligence and creativity. Ineffable. Wonderment to the power of infinity! Absolutely beyond human comprehension, but still we try because it's something deep in the core of our being.

How was it for you?

[BigJohn]

Originally Posted by JustASimpleGuy

I've never practiced thought watching per se, but in all the techniques I have practiced and currently practice it's more or less a secondary "noticing". That is whether focused (breathe, sound, smell, bodily sensation) or open (resting in awareness) thoughts get noticed as they arise, sooner (with enough practice) or later (when a novice).

With enough practice the mind does settle down and to an amazing degree. It all depends on the amount of lifetime practice. The results begin to become noticeable after roughly two weeks of 30 minutes a day and eventually carry over outside of formal sitting with enough practice.

This is a great analogy for clarity of mind, and best I can describe it is serenity or even bliss.

https://youtu.be/5TeWvf-nfpA?list=PL...PNokg&t=155 6

The only thing I would debate is resting in awareness is not a basic technique (that would be the focused techniques, the most basic being breathe) but an advanced technique. It's pretty much a prerequisite to have gained a certain amount of single-pointed focus and concentration via basic techniques, otherwise open meditation can be very challenging (read frustrating!) with a wholly untrained monkey mind.

"With enough practice the mind does settle down and to an amazing degree."


Quieting the mind is achievable. Nice to achieve but not a place most people want to stay at.

Originally Posted by janielee

How was it for you?

Oh, I was speaking from a purely intellectual analysis of infinity, not experiential. Trying to wrap my mind around it, which of course is impossible, at least for me.

We all hear tell of out of body and otherworldly mystical experiences, and especially from the Yogic tradition. The only OBE I had was at a very young age and outside of being disembodied it was quite normal, if one can call an OBE normal.

As for the experience of Oneness I had last year I was fully embodied and yet I wasn't. I was within and without if that makes sense, but my sensory perspective was still embodied but I could "feel" Consciousness everywhere.

Originally Posted by BigJohn

"With enough practice the mind does settle down and to an amazing degree."


Quieting the mind is achievable. Nice to achieve but not a place most people want to stay at.

I suppose mind might not want to stay there but Consciousness seems to like it.

From my perspective it's all about balance and voluntary thinking vs. involuntary thinking. I'm not even saying involuntary thinking isn't happening, however with a sufficiently trained mind its more harmful patterns of thought can be derailed as they arise. Not allowed to grow into a negative emotional reaction. For me that's the ultimate aspect of free will.